


Snow

by Insertsmartnamehere



Category: Foyle's War
Genre: First Aid, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Injury, Whump, but he had one already so that's not my fault, prothesis
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-28
Updated: 2017-03-28
Packaged: 2018-10-12 01:45:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,551
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10479288
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Insertsmartnamehere/pseuds/Insertsmartnamehere
Summary: ‘Hey,’ she said. ‘Stay calm, all right? You will be fine.’Milner wanted to answer that he felt quite calm; he had only slipped, after all. He wanted to push them away and get up and laugh at the fuss.That was when the pain came rushing in.





	

**Author's Note:**

> You all know I don't own these characters, but just to be clear: I don't own them.   
> Kudos and comments honestly make my day (or week).

One moment he was walking – or trying to walk, at least – the next his foot slipped and the world tipped to the side and he tried to regain his balance but it all felt off and his hands didn’t quite manage to get under or in front of him and then something hard hit his head and he didn’t know anything for a few seconds.

Or minutes.

When Milner opened his eyes, everything was white. He vaguely remembered falling. For a moment, the thought of heaven crossed his mind – but a warm, rough hand landed on his cheek and a voice insisted: ‘Sergeant? Sergeant Milner?’

He tried to answer. Nothing but a groan came out.

The hand was turning his head. The whiteness disappeared, and he realized it had been snow. Like seeing the blood makes you feel the wound, he suddenly started trembling with cold.

‘Sergeant Milner?’ the voice asked again. He recognized it now: Foyle. Whether it was the smack or the uncharacteristic worry in the voice that had made it hard to recognize, he wasn’t sure.

A face loomed over him. Milner blinked a few times to get it clear; not Foyle, Sam, and she looked very pale.

‘Hey,’ she said. ‘Stay calm, all right? You will be fine.’

He wanted to answer that he felt quite calm; he had only slipped, after all. He wanted to push them away and get up and laugh at the fuss.

That was when the pain came rushing in.

Milner had had his share of pain, and yet, this felt like topping all the rest. He almost blacked out again, little flashes of light dancing in front of his eyes. A scream tore itself out of his throat without permission. He tried to get up, to scoot backwards, crawl away from what he was feeling. His leg sent spurts of fire and acid up through his body and he would gladly loose another part of it if that would rid him of the pain, too.

The hands were back. They pushed on his chest, his back against the icy ground, and held his chin, his cheek, making him look up into caring, dark brown eyes.

‘Paul,’ Sam said. ‘Please stay still. Help will come. You will be alright. It’s okay.’

‘Hurts,’ he managed to croak, and he cringed at his own words. _Don’t act so goddamned weak_. But the flames licking their way up his knee were too much; he simple couldn’t think of anything better.

'I know,’ she answered softly. 'And I am sorry. But moving will make it worse. Take a deep breathe for me, now.’

He tried to calm his desperate gasping. Having something to concentrate on didn’t lessen the pain, but it built a little room is his body, like a blanket fort, where he could retreat into and have some sort of control over himself.

'That’s good,’ Sam mumbled. 'Deep breaths. Keep going. You are doing fine, Paul.’

When had she taken to calling him Paul?

Foyle's face appeared next to hers. He looked older, more grey then Milner remembered him. 'Help is on it’s way,’ he said. 'It will not be more then a few minutes. Let’s keep you warm till then, shall we?’

Without hesitation, he shrugged out of his jacket. Milner wanted to protest, say it would get him ill, but his tongue was lost now his body was only made of an agonizing left leg and he couldn’t find the words. Foyle tucked the jacket around him like a blanket.

‘I’ll get you more comfortable,’ Sam said. Her hand disappeared. As soon as the contact was gone, Milner felt three degrees colder, despite the jacket. His breathing sped up again and he couldn’t help it; the aching clawed at his throat. Instinctively, he reached up, till a hand grabbed his wrist and brought it down.

Foyle's face was above him again, his eyes staring into Milner's. ‘We are not leaving,‘ he said sternly. ‘We are right here. Calm down.‘

He heard how Sam crouched in the snow, and his head was moved up and down. Instead of the frozen ground, he now felt something softer and warmer beneath him.

'Is this okay?’ Sam asked.

_Not a pillow_ , he realized. _Not a folded piece of clothing. Her tight_. He bit his lip at the inappropriateness of it, but he feared that if he opened his mouth only a scream would leave it. She stroked his hair slowly. Foyle had crouched too and still held his wrist. The pain was unforgiving, hard and hot as burning iron. Milner had to close his eyes to keep the tears from slipping.

Then: sirens.

Only the soft pressure of Sam's hand kept him from looking up again. She didn’t stop stroking him.

'There they are,’ Foyle said, and Sam added: 'Relax, you. They will help. You are fine.’

He hadn’t even noticed he had tensed up at the sound till she mentioned it. Two men came rushing to them, and while one told them their names, the other knelt down beside his leg.

Milner didn’t want to know, but at the same time, he had too. 'How bad?’ he whispered.

'We will have to have a look first,’ one of the medics said. Milner had already forgotten his name, or maybe he hadn’t really heard it in the first place. 'We will do that right now, and when we are sure we can move you safely, we will get you into the car and take you to the hospital. Is there anywhere you are hurt, except for the leg?’

Foyle answered in his place: 'He hit his head pretty hard. Been out of it for a couple of minutes.’

'Nauseous?’ the man asked Milner.

_Only from the pain._ 'No.’

He nodded. 'That’s good. Can you tell me you name? What year do we live in?’

It took a lot of self control for Milner not to yell at him. _It’s my leg, damn it, that’s what hurts, please do something before I go mad_. He answered both questions right, his voice cracking, and thank God the medic was satisfied after that.

'We are going to cut of your trousers now,’ he told Milner.

Milder didn’t particularly want to see. He looked up and into Sam's face. Foyle had slightly changed his grasp, so his hand was now on top of Milner's.

'That’s right,’ Sam told him. 'Look at me. You will be okay.’

He wasn’t sure why they felt they needed to be so protective – they couldn’t know about his struggle with medics, now, could they? – till his leg was moved a little to get the fabric away from the wound and he almost cried out. A full body shudder shook him and Sam whispered things he didn’t understand.

They had to manipulate his leg again to get the prosthesis out of the way. This time he yelled for real, and then he bit his tongue till it bled. The hands on him were cold but steady. He squeezed his eyes shut, trying to block out everything but Sam's calming voice.

How long it all took, he couldn’t tell. It was a short time, surely, but it was also a very _very_ long time, and when they finally were done he was trembling all over.

_It’s the cold_ , he wanted to tell them. His jaw was aching from biting back the screams.

'A nasty wound,’ the medic said. 'Nothing too threatening, though. Knee twisted, prosthesis moved, old scars ripped open. Something broken, probably, too. It will take time to heal, but at least it will heal. Now let’s get you into the car; some warmth and a strong dose painkiller would be welcome, I assume.’

He was so cheerily about it, that Milner both wanted to hit him and thank him. He hadn’t got the strength to do either. Instead, he let himself be hauled onto a stretcher – the kind of stretcher he had sworn never to be on again – and tried to breathe through the pain moving inflicted. His muscles where tense; he was still shaking.

They shoved him in the back of the ambulance.

'Will you go with him?’ Sam asked somewhere close outside. 'I will drive up to the hospital.’

Foyle didn’t answer, but Milner soon heard him enter and turned his head to look at him. While one of the medics opened his jacket and shirt with one hand, a syringe in the other, he watched Foyle walking closer in till he stood next to him, his hands on the edge of the stretcher, fingers just brushing Milner's side.

'We’ll come with you to the hospital,’ Foyle told him. 'You will be on your feet again before you know it, sergeant.’

Milner hadn’t noticed the needle going in, but he did notice the heavy pull of drugs not long after the medic had moved away. It was good, but at the same time, it felt wrong. He tried to shake the sleepiness when Foyle put a hand on his shoulder and smiled lightly.

‘It’s alright. I will keep watch.‘

He would have liked to ask how Foyle had known what to say, but the drugs pulled at him, insisting. Before he could return the smile, he sunk back in a blackness without pain.


End file.
